Want to see SIT closure report on Gujarat riots: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court Tuesday said it would like to see the closure report of the Special Investigation Team which probed the 2002 post-Godhra riots, giving a clean chit to then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and 63 others.

The court said it also wants to see the justification given by the magisterial court while accepting the report.

A bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar was hearing the plea of Zakia Jafri, the wife of slain Congress leader Ehsan Jafri, challenging the SIT’s clean chit.

Kapil Sibal, who is representing Jafri, said that he did not want conviction of the persons named in Jafri’s complaint at the moment and his case was that there was “a larger conspiracy where there was bureaucratic inaction, police complicity, hate speeches and unleashing of violence”.

Sibal told the bench that the SIT and the courts did not look at Jafri’s complaints and other relevant facts.